Book Reviews (56)

Meeting Reports

283rd Regular Meeting (62)
13th Research Seminar of Political of Geography Study Group (66)
14th Research Seminar of Political of Geography Study Group (69)
15th Research Seminar of Political of Geography Study Group (72)
120th Research Seminar of Geographical Thought Study Group (75)

News (78)

Annual Meeting 2015 Program (80)

Abstracts

The Structure and Transition of Fishing Ground Management under a Large-scale Fishery Cooperative: A Case Study of the Wakayama-Higashi Fishery Cooperative

SAKITA Seishiro
Graduate Student, Nagoya University

Fishery cooperatives (FCs) in Japan have long managed coastal fishing grounds based on a fishery rights system, particularly common fishery rights, which are derived from old local community customs. However, merging of the FCs has been promoted nationwide for half a century to improve deteriorating business. Consequently, common fishery rights are now managed by a large-scale FC, whereas micro-scale fishing grounds related to common fishery rights are still managed by the former area FC. Thus, the aim of this study was to reveal the structural aspects of micro-scale fishing ground management by the local area under the large-scale FC.
The study site was Kushimoto-cho, Wakayama Prefecture, located at the southernmost part of the Kii Peninsula. Fifteen areas in and around Kushimoto-cho, which had former FCs, now fall under the jurisdiction of the large-scale Wakayama-Higashi FC. Three of these areas were analyzed in this study. The three areas have different fishing characteristics, primarily dependent on local environmental conditions within the fishing grounds. These local environmental factors also affect fishing ground management within the areas.
After merging of the different FCs, micro-scale fishing grounds have been managed by voluntary organizations separate from the area. Each area has various voluntary organization-led structures according to the number of participating fishermen and the economic dependence of each common fishery right-based fishery.
Meanwhile, the autonomy of the areas alone was insufficient to retain their conventional and independent fishing ground management. The legitimacy of fishing ground management in the areas is reinforced by their association with official institutions. That is to say, the areas demonstrate their initiative to manage the fishing grounds through some obscure official institutions that reflect the area’s customs. In contrast, independent fishing ground management has been replaced in some areas by restrictive official institutions through legal force.
Moreover, the fishing ground management structures in these areas are neither well-established nor declining. Various methods of transition have been used, such as reductions, restructuring, or strengthening, and these are related to the dynamics of various factors, such as shifting fishery status and the intentions of local fishermen.
The results of this study show the current multilayered fishing ground management structure and explain that the fishing ground management structure in the areas has changed in various ways in parallel with the FC merger and that reciprocal relationships with official institutions have been built. Such recognition will provide important insight for discussing the future of micro-scale fishing ground management considering the domestic trend towards decreasing the size of the fishing industry and expanding the FCs.

Comparison of the Contents of Normal School and Middle School Geography Textbooks Used in Late Meiji and Early Showa Periods under the Old System

KONDO Hiroyuki
Faculty of Education, Aichi University of Education

The aim of this study was to verify the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the normal school geography textbooks as compared to those used in middle schools.
The study examined geography textbooks from 1910 and 1937 and reached the following conclusions:
1. From inspection of the contents of geography textbooks used in normal school and middle school in the late Meiji and the early Showa periods, I found out that middle school textbooks were not always more voluminous and deeper than normal school textbooks. This fact suggests that the status of the normal schools improved only gradually. In other words, the growing sophistication of normal schools led to a relative decline in middle school textbook superiority, and raised the level of normal school textbooks.
2. In textbooks for normal schools, there were almost no geographical teaching methods presented that would be useful for teachers in the future. But there were some textbooks which contained teaching methods and decrees concerned with education.
One can say that there were authors who recognized the importance of relating teaching methods. This continues to be a problem in today’s teacher education.
The present work failed to consider geographical teaching methods in detail and this should be examined in another paper.

FUJIOKA YuichiroFrontier Research Institute for Interdisciplinary Sciences, Tohoku University
YATSUKA Haruna
College of International Relations, Nihon University
IIDA Yoshihiko
The United Nations University Institute of Advanced Studies

Mountainous areas in Japan have been faced with various environmental issues specific to these regions’ ongoing depopulation, aging of residents, and economic globalization. Along with these problems there has been a decline in the use of forest resources and the relation between residents and the forest has changed dramatically. In response, regional development movements have been promoting the commodification of natural resources and the processed goods that can be made from them. The important issue in such regional developments is how to maintain the sustainability of production while overcoming the problems such as depopulation and aging. This paper examines the factors related to sustainability in the commodification of Tochi rice cakes whose main ingredient is Tochi nuts (nuts of the Japanese horse chestnut, or Aesculus turbinata Blume), known as tochinomi, in Kutsuki, Shiga Prefecture, Central Japan.
Following the removal of their astringent taste, Tochi nuts are used as a major ingredient in making Tochi rice cakes. Residents of hamlet “A” had been gathering Tochi nuts from the local forest until the late 1950s and primarily produced Tochi rice cakes for consumption at home. Since the 1960s, however, the use of Tochi rice cakes and gathering of Tochi nuts had been decreasing. In the 1980s, the residents considered reactivating the process to boost the local economy, so seven households set up an association for the preservation of Tochi rice cake production. Initially, members sold Tochi rice cakes at various local events, then in 1988 they began selling the products at the farmers’ morning market which had opened, and later at a shop near the Kutsuki Shinhonjin roadside station, which opened in 1993.
At Kutsuki Shinhonjin in both 2004 and 2011 Tochi rice cakes were the second most popular products sold at the station, and their ratio was almost the same (11% and 10%, respectively) in both years. Regarding the sales of the Tochi rice cakes at the farmers’ market in 2004 and 2009, they were frequently sold in all open markets in both years. Most people (87%) who bought the Tochi rice cakes at the farmers’ market were repeat customers and not first-time visitors; thus, Tochi rice cake were in steady demand. There were few producers of Tochi rice cakes and most were elderly people, so their relatives tended to help with both producing and selling them. The important factors that sustained the production of Tochi rice cakes over a period of about 30 years in this area were (1) face-to-face selling at the farmers’ market and various events, and (2) the independence of producers and the loose cooperative relations among producers.